TRANSCENDING ALL BARRIERS

The Foundation of the Church

Today, as in the New Testament, the local church is the organization that God is building in fulfillment of prophesy in the Old Testament. The history of an organization almost always reveals (and sometimes dictates) many of the reasons that the people belonging to that organization behave the way they do. Additionally, there is a vision and an intent that the founder of an organization has. As the Holy Spirit guided individuals through history, church today, it is important to re-examine the foundation that Christ laid for the church and to question whether or not the organization as a whole is continuing to build upon this foundation as He intended. As Paul reminded the Corinthian church, a wise master builder must examine both the foundation and the materials used in building. The size of the work is not as important as the quality (I Corinthians 3:10-15).

Jesus Christ established His church with authority with the first mention of the word “church” in the Bible. After Peter recognized Jesus as “the Christ” (Matt. 16:16-18), Jesus replied that “…upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Often this passage has been misunderstood (and misconstrued) to mean that Jesus promised to build His church upon Peter. However, taken in the context of the entire Bible, this cannot be the case. That “this rock” directly referred to the person of Jesus Christ being established in three Old Testament prophecies (Exodus 17:6 and numbers 20:10,11; Isaiah 8:14; Daniel 2:45) and was recognized by both Paul and Peter in their writings (Romans 9:30-33; I Cor. 10:4; I Peter 2:6-8). This single statement made during the earthly ministry of Jesus established who would build the church (“…I will build…”), who would own the church (“…my church…”) and upon whom the church would be built (“…upon this rock…”). Victory was declared as the former barrier embodied in the law of sin and death was abolished and replaced by grace. Jesus stated this authoritatively since He was (and is) the Son of God as Peter recognized. Jesus accomplished this statement by dying on the cross since He was (and is) the Messiah for whom the Jews awaited just as Peter believed and testified. Jesus still owns His church and continues to work in the churches that recognize Him as Messiah and God.

Jesus created His church to be unified as a single body with Christ directing as head (Ephesians 4:15, 16). John began his gospel with a historical chronology from the creation of the world by Christ to the time that Jesus came into the world as a human to save His people. John concluded that the world did not know Jesus as creator, the Jews rejected Jesus as Messiah, and only those that “received” Jesus became a part of God’s family (John 1; 1-12). Interestingly, John describes the believers as those who were “…born, not of blood, nor have the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” He makes it clear that the unifying factor within the body of believers is not heritage, nor self determination, nor assistance from or coercion by others, but simply being born of God (John 1; 13) Within the church then, there is to be only one kind of believer since all believers have been made “one” in Christ (Gal. 3:28).

In the early church this was a problem. Believers were divided over the issue of heritage because some had been saved while they were Jews while others were saved as Gentiles. This issue became contentious enough that God revealed to Peter in vision that Jesus Christ came not only to save the Jews but also the Gentiles (Acts 10:9-17, 34, 35). Later in Acts 15, believers became divided because some taught that a person could not be saved without physical circumcision in the flesh. The question surrounded whether only Jews (who had been circumcised) were saved or whether Gentiles could be saved (through circumcision). Yet Peter was reminded that only grace through Jesus saves (Acts 15:11) James was reminded that the prophets had foretold of a time during which the Gentiles would be saved (Acts 15:15-19). Believers were also divided over the importance of their spiritual heritage. In Corinth, believers linked their salvation more to the names of the people who led them to Christ than to Christ himself. So Paul instructed (I Corinthians 1:10-13) the believers not to consider whether they were saved under the ministry of particular man (e.g., Paul, Apollo’s, Cephas) but to “…be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.”

The key to abolishing the barriers between people, including former Jews and Gentile, is grace. Despite Jesus offering grace to escape the fate of a Gentile past (death), divisions crept into the church because those born of God did not allow themselves to be led by the Spirit of God Paul instructed the Ephesians very clearly regarding the matter of doctrinal purity and unity (Eph. 4;1-6,14). For believers to be unified within a church, they must be unified in belief. More importantly, they must seek to be unified by the Spirit (Eph. 4:3). Jesus, being the rightful head, set the example by humbling himself to become a servant (Philippians 2:5-8) and a man yielding even to death. Jesus, being a Jew, broke with his earthly heritage and shared the kingdom of God with outcasts (Matthew 15:22-28, Luke 23:39-43, John 4:9-26). Jesus still intends for His church to be unified as they seek to love as He intended (John 13:35) and as they seek those that are still divided by Satan and lost (II Timothy 2:24-26).

Jesus located His church in the world (Matt. 28:19, John 17:18). To clarify that neither Jerusalem nor the mountain in Samaria would be competing as centers of worship, Jesus told the Samaritan woman that “…the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth…” (John 4:23). In the past, worship had been located primarily in Jerusalem because the glory of God attended the temple (2 Chron. 7). However, Jesus did not leave us wondering about the new location of the church. In Matthew 18:20, Jesus said that He would be present wherever two or three people gathered together in His name. The context for this passage is